National Design Award Winners Announced

The Cooper-Hewitt's 2011 National Design Award winners are an impressive group of thinkers

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Continuum, the 2011 National Design Award winner in the Product Design category, designed the air bladder fit control system for the Reebok Pump sneaker in the late 1980s, among other successful products. Photo by Mike Brzoza.

“The work of this year’s National Design Awards winners represents extraordinary solutions to the design problems central to the landscape of daily life, from how we dress, shape our personal and private spaces, frame communication and interact with the world at large,” adds Moggridge. Lifetime Achievement winner Matthew Carter has spent 50 years designing typefaces, including the familiar Verdana and Georgia. The New York-based Architecture Research Office, selected as the Architecture Design winner, has taken on many innovative projects, such as a prototype for a low-income yet sustainable house. And Continuum, which takes the award for Product Design, is the studio behind Reebok’s Pump line of shoes and the now ubiquitous Swiffer.

This year, National Design Week will be held October 15-23, with the winners receiving their awards at a gala dinner at Pier Sixty in New York on October 20. Polls will be open for the People’s Design Award, which calls design enthusiasts to nominate and vote on products that constitute good design, from September 19 to October 18.

In the meantime, here is a roundup of our coverage of past winners:

Bill Moggridge, a 2009 winner in Lifetime Achievement, discusses the future of computing and design.

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